Epress.am News from Armenia
The earliest known winery has been uncovered in a cave in the mountains of Armenia, AP reports.
A vat to press the grapes, fermentation jars and even a cup and drinking bowl dating to about 6,000 years ago were discovered in the cave complex by an international team of researchers.
While older evidence of wine drinking has been found, this is the earliest example of complete wine production, according to Gregory Areshian of the University of California-Los Angeles, co-director of the excavation.
The findings, announced today by the National Geographic Society, are in the online edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science.
“The evidence argues convincingly for a wine-making facility,” said Patrick McGovern, scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, who was not part of the research team.
According to the archeologists, inside the cave was a shallow basin about 3 feet across that was positioned to drain into a deep vat.
The basin could have served as a wine press where people stomped the grapes with their feet, a method Areshian noted was traditional for centuries.
They also found grape seeds, remains of pressed grapes and dozens of dried vines.
The earliest comparable remains were found in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian king Scorpion I, dating to about 5,100 years ago.
Because the wine-making facility was found surrounded by graves, the researchers suggest the wine may have been intended for ceremonial use.
In his books, McGovern has suggested that a “wine culture,” including the domestication of the Eurasian grape, was first consolidated in the mountainous regions around Armenia before moving to the south.